TheTonightShowWithConanObrien

Tina Fey is the star and producer of '30 Rock' (Thu., 9:30PM ET on NBC). She's also a friend of Conan O'Brien. But that probably had nothing to do with the current episode of the show. Although the latest episode did oddly parody the late night wars between O'Brien and his rival Jay Leno. Maybe it's just all a coincidence?

No one, however, is closer to achieving a full-on joygasm than 'Lopez Tonight' host George Lopez. He should. He's going to have an awesome lead-in audience, worldwide attention, and a better chance of beating the late night bigwigs than he could ever hope for if he was on his own.

So why should he not go "muy loco" or any other ethnically charged verb for sharing a late night block with "Coco"?

Conan O'Brien's deal with TBS may have thrown every TV pundit and pontificator for a loop, but here's one that will make your head spin clear around your neck. (WARNING: TV Squad and its parent companies will not be held responsible for any head and/or neck trauma that may occur while reading this article).

While everyone thought Conan would simply jump to Fox because it was the last remaining network without a strong late night slot, Coco and company were being courted by all sorts of networks and media outlets, including ... Microsoft???

That's right, the technology giant had been talking to Conan about a deal that would have brought his nightly talk show to their XBox Live service.

We at TV Squad have been accused of having an bias against Jay Leno. That might be true; after all, our writers are free to post their opinions on any and all news stories, and my guess is that most of our staff are not big Leno fans (in fact, Bob has said many, many, many times how much he dislikes Jay).

But, one thing we've never denied is that the man can get an audience at 11:35. And, if anyone was fretting that Leno's audience wouldn't follow him back to 'The Tonight Show,' you needn't have worried.

According to Media Life Magazine (via TVWeek), Leno averaged 4.2 million viewers per night last week. Yes, that's one million viewers less than he had a year ago, but it's still a million more than Letterman, whose 'Late Show' has lost about 900,000 viewers since Leno came back. And Leno's pulling almost 1.5 million more viewers than Conan did.

So, why did most of the viewers come back so soon? Four reasons come to mind:

Coco might be unemployed, but he's not spending his days half-naked in a bean bag chair and hitting a bag of Doritos like he's trying to earn "Nacho Miles."

He's hard at work on a new live show, the big loophole in his contract that precludes him going on television for some time, starting with Phoenix, Arizona.

TMZ confirmed that Conan is holding a stage show at the Dodge Theatre on April 30 and tickets go on sale today. Ticketmaster started selling seats for the soon to be sold out show but took the listing down when TMZ broke the story. A theater representative confirmed the show will still go on as planned.

There isn't any word yet on what the show is exactly, but expect a lot of angry puppets, a heavy dose of death humor and 1,001 cracks at Jay Leno that would have gotten him thrown in FCC's "Naughty Word Jail" until the end of the next century. In other words, the depth of your standard NBC contract.

If you tuned into Tuesday night's 'Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,' you might have found yourself questioning if there was something wrong with your hearing, your brand new surround sound speaker system, or both.

Nothing was wrong, though. The show didn't have a monologue. It didn't have any pre-planned comedy bits or hand puppets talking about Lindsey Lohan's latest coke binge. It didn't even have an audience.

The entire hour just featured two guys sitting in two chairs talking about anything and everything all at once. It was the most normal hour of late night television I've seen, despite the fact that both of them were taking an occasional sip of water from angry rattlesnakes.

NBC has been recycling their 'Jay Leno Show' promos to prep for Leno's return to 'The Tonight Show' slot. Could there be a clearer metaphor?

Anyway, the new promos have been using a cover version of the Beatles' "Get Back" to not-so-subtly greet the host back from prime time hell. But one very clever YouTube user found a much more appropriate song to accompany Jay on his return back to 11:30 p.m.

It also spawned a pretty decent made-for-TV HBO movie. Now I don't know what kind of craziness "Round Two" has to offer, but the players involved are definitely going to have all sorts of wild secrets revealed from Carter's work and when it does, HBO is going to want the movie rights. So here's who should play who in this new tragic merry-go-round of television programming hilarity that shall be called 'The Late Shift 2'.

Are you a fan of Conan O'Brien? Were you so incensed at NBC's treatment of him that you considered launching some kind of letter writing campaign that, at best, could cripple NBC's mailroom department and force them to take a half day? Chances are you're also really white.

Lander said the lighter skinned people of the universe are behind Coco because "he embodies so many of the things they already like before he even opens his mouth: Ivy League Schools, Red Hair, the Boston Red Sox, Self Deprecating Humor, The Simpsons, and Bad Memories of High School (likely, but not confirmed). Seeing him on television five nights a week is a comforting reminder of community to the white people who still have televisions."

Everyone involved in the Second Late Night War got both criticism and praise. Yes, even Jay Leno got praise in some circles (just not from me). But now we've had some time to let the dust settle and take a closer look, there's a clear winner in this battle: Conan O'Brien.

Why? Well, some news from our friends at TMZ is a good place to start:

1. Conan is paying his crew himself. TMZ reported yesterday that some of the old 'Tonight Show' crew -- namely, the stage hands -- are being paid severance directly by Conan because they weren't among the staff being paid under Conan's separation agreement with NBC. According to the report, he's paying 50 staffers six weeks' worth of severance. Now, that's not going to help those staffers pay the bills until Conan comes back in September, but it's better than getting what NBC was offering, which was zero. The word mensch comes to mind when I read this story.

There are very few true signs of utter respect in your profession. Don't believe me? I'll venture a bet that no one has ever made a Cheeto profile of your boss' big fat head.

An artist with the Eclectic Asylum Art Gallery of Colorado Springs, Colorado did just that for former 'Tonight Show' host Conan O'Brien with over 2,000 Cheetos of the crunchy, puffed and "flamin' hot" variety. It goes without saying that orange really suits ol' Coco.

Although he's no longer host of the 'Tonight Show,' at least Conan O'Brien can say that he went out on a high note.

Last Friday's episode (his last) was the funnyman's most-watched ever, taking in a solid 10.3 million viewers, according to the LA Times. That number even topped his premiere episode on June 1, which drew 9.2 million total.

'The Tonight Show''s ratings have slowly increased over the weeks, due to the ongoing -- but finally kaput -- controversy between O'Brien, NBC and O'Brien's successor, Jay Leno. According to the report, O'Brien's audience averaged 5.3 million viewers last week, his second-best performance since his first week on the job. Letterman, meanwhile, averaged a distant 3.9 million.